Using social media to drive change

Social Entrepreneurship: It can mean different things to different people, from for-profit companies with a double bottom line to non-profit organizations working for social change. I attended a fantastic meeting on social good last weekend at General Assembly in New York City that included people from all parts of the equation. It was a full day of interesting speakers, including Megan Anhalt, senior strategist at Purpose.com, who talked about using social media to drive change. Anhalt says the most important thing to remember is why people share on social media: They want to be heard.

She listed 16 things we can all do – whether it’s for a client or a cause you volunteer for – to increase your impact on social media. Here are some of her points.

1. Deploy the Tell a Friend button. It increases your shares
2. Image is king on Facebook. Whenever possible, include images. They don’t always have to be fancy or complex infographics. Sometimes a picture of great hand-lettered phrase or statement can make a big impact.
3. Give people something to make a statement about. Again, people want to be heard and giving them a platform to speak up on something is key.
4. Think bite sized. Present information in multiple small chunks.
5. Ask for something more and be explicit. If you ask people to please retweet, it increases your retweets by 40 percent.
7. Engage in your community…Make sure you reply to and thank people. You can highlight a story related to your cause that someone posted about.
8. Be surprising. Check out her example of the GetUp Australia ad on YouTube
9. Experiment. Try something new. If it doesn’t work, learn something from it and move on to the next idea.